Thursday, August 13, 2009

The piece is about a ban in France on a woman wearing a small tent, a "burkini", while swimming, because she is a Muslim. Interestingly, since the far left in the UK has tended to ally with political Islam, we have this quote:

André Gérin, a Communist MP, who is heading a parliamentary commission looking at whether to ban the burka, yesterday said the burkini was "militant provocation" and should be banned.

"There is a political and militant project behind this outfit - perhaps even gurus who are whispering to her to play the victim and publicise her complaint," he told Le Parisien.

Some swimming pools had already caved into women-only sessions, he said, but this was apparently "not sufficient for fundamentalists".

"What they want is a world of burkas," he warned.

He is correct, that is what they want. The various rights involved, of society to maintain a common secular space, of individuals to dress strangely if they want to, are hard to balance. But there certainly is a systematic effort by Islamic militants to impose their values on us all, and this should be opposed. On balance, I think France is getting this more right than we are. In a conflict situation, some rights have to be abrogated.